wow it's been too long and too much to say

Patrick is currently in Krakow, Poland. He has spent the last week and a half in Prague and Bratislava, the capitol of Slovakia with a group of student from GW in a class on Central European Politics. He had lot of opportunities to meet with different leaders over there through this class and to learn a lot more about the two countries. He left home on May 19th and will be in Europe until June 15th. While he is there he will be on his own a lot but will also be visiting friends. He will be taking his Foreign Service test at The Hague on June 9th so you could be praying for him to do well. He is having a great time, missing home, but is learning a lot and is very thankful for the opportunity to travel. I'll make sure he writes all about his travels when he returns.

I would like to fill you all in on the last few months of our lives. I think I will work backwards and make it quick so that you don't sit here for the longest time reading bc we have been blog slackers.

The day after Patrick left my friend Pami came into town for 5 days. We went to a Carbon Leaf concert and spent tons of time running around town and chilling in the night watching movies. It was a great time. I had the week off bc Jack and his parents went to Iowa to hang with family there.

The weekend before Patrick left we had Jeremy and Jessica Rowen staying with us. They were over here (East Coast) for a wedding and drove over to hang out for the weekend. They had their own car and hit the Smithsonian's hard while Patrick and I ran town getting stuff done so he would be ready to fly out by Tuesday.

The Friday before the Rowens came into town the Connallys were just flying out from a full week with us. While they were here we went down to Williamsburg for the weekend, ate bread and pastries from the little German bakery down the street and played with Jack a lot. We celebrated both Mothers Day and Connie's birthday while they were here. We went to the Baltimore Aquarium with them and Jack and met up with a youth group kid who graduated last year and is now attending college in Baltimore, Averill. It was a fun week having them here and they really enjoyed playing with Jack and hopefully hanging out with us as well. ; )

At the end of April I had a week off while Jack and his parents went to Disney World. Patrick and I took the opportunity to head up to NYC and do some of the things we didn't get to do the first time. Quickly here are some highlights:

• Lion King on Broadway
• Statue of Liberty
• David Letterman
• Sitting next at dinner to the kid who was drafted #2 the next day in the NFL draft
• Our super cheap hotel outside of town with a little bus into town
• Brooklyn, we decided that we would live there if Patrick ever wanted to work for the UN

We did so much more but those are the highlights.

A couple of weeks before that the Warners, who we know from church in Tacoma and their daughter Julianne was in my class last year, came to town. They stayed with Paul's brother in Alexandria, but we got to have dinner with them a couple of nights and watch American Idol and play Rock Band (hope that's the right game, Julianne) with them. It was really great catching up with them and seeing a family that we love here in Washington.

Just before that my mom came out for a week during her spring break. It was so nice to have her here. Jack fell in love with her right away and called her Grandma the first time he saw her. So funny and cute. We made cookies, did lots of crafts and went to the zoo. It was very fun to play all week and just to have Mom here especially because Patrick was really busy getting ready for finals and finishing up his internships. We also did a lot of gardening and purchasing of patio furniture, thanks Mom and Dad! My mom, her parents and sister and my aunts two young kids (8&6) will be coming at the end of June, we are SO excited to have them all here!

While my mom was here we had an evening visit with the Jacobsen family, our pastor and his family from Tacoma, which also included American Idol. It was great to see them even for an evening. They were staying with Liz's parents up in Bethesda so it was a little harder to see them during the busy week, so we were very happy with one night.

Before my mom came our friend Peter drove through and stayed with us for a night on his way down to N. Caroline to visit his sister. Peter was in our wedding and is one of Patrick's closest friends so it was really awesome to have him come but also a bummer that he only had one night. But we are so glad he was able to make time to stop and see us!

Then about a week before my mom came into town Kevin and Melody came to visit (Patrick's youngest brother and his wife). Yes, we are in the middle of March at this point in the story...It was so long ago but I still remember how fun it was to have them here. Kevin turned 21 during their stay so he and Patrick went out that night and had some drinks. It was so great to see them and to have them stay with us. They were shocked, like most ppl their first time to Washington, at how amazing of a city this is.

We have really been enjoying our new home and city. We do love it here and I continue to love my job and am so thankful for Jack and his parents.

The news that I've saved until the end: Patrick received a full scholarship for next year! This is so great and I'm so proud of all of his hard work to have received this scholarship. So that means that he is able to take an internship with the EU embassy here. Well, it's not really an embassy but that's a good way of explaining it. He was also offered a really good job for the summer but it looks like it might be there for him in the fall after this internship is over. I'll let him tell you more about that after he gets started in June.

So things are going really well here and we have lots more visitors lined up for the rest of the summer. My friend Anna will be here next week to hang out with me while Patrick is away. And the list of visitors could continue until early September but I'll spare you the details.

We will be flying into Seattle in June, the Friday Patrick gets back for our friend Hunter's wedding. We only have enough time to drive strait up to Bellingham and back to Seattle on Monday morning. But we will be waving to you all while we fly in and out.

Thanks for baring with me. We love you all!


Jack and Patrick at the "real bowling" as opposed to Wii Bowling.

Rory and Patrick building our back little patio for the garbage and recycling bins. Rory did more work than this picture gives him credit for. : )

Good times in Jamestown.


This was a game that the Native American's played. It was like lawn darts.

Look Mom, a Native American molcajeta!


This is from Liberty Island.
A cute church in NYC.

Patrick so happy on Draft Day outside of Radio City Music Hall with all the crazy NFL fans.

I thought you would like this, Dad. It's a baseball field in the middle of Manhattan.

This was where we sat in Brooklyn with our lunch one day.


Mom and Jack at the zoo with a cute puzzle Mom got him.

Gardening



Patrick and Jack finding Newts.

Mom made Jack this cute Dora apron. He loves it! We made cookies this day.

A house divided

Kim reminded me of one more thought that struck us one the Gettysburg trip. Probably thanks largely to Abraham Lincoln, the Union, and the United States in general, was shockingly forgiving of the Confederacy immediately after the end of the war. All of the soldiers were regranted citizenship, and none of the generals or Southern leaders were hung as traitors would have been in nearly any other situation. Not only were the traitors tolerated, they were allowed to put up memorials to their fallen heroes, name streets and parks after Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee, and were brought back into national life as equals to the states they had just spurned. And on top of that the North poured money into reconstructing the South. This is a remarkable example of forgiveness and of a nation collectively putting past wrongs behind it. The South could have been held responsible for the deaths of 650,000 people but they weren't. I'm not quite sure what to make of it, but it's remarkable.

Gettysburg

This posting will deal mainly with a trip Kim and I took last weekend to Gettysburg. However, before I get on to the main dish, I thought we'd start with something that has bothered me for a long time. I am referring, of course, to people saying that they are in a 'insert type here' sandwich when they stand between two people who share a particular characteristic. "I'm in a Michael sandwich!" (when standing between two Michaels) or "I'm in a software engineer sandwich..." (said with disappointment and slight apprehension). The problem with this class of statement is that sandwiches are named for what's in between the two pieces of bread. This is so obvious it's embarrassing to say. Only in specific cases does the bread get a mention in the name of the sandwich. Which is why saying "I'm in a Michael sandwich" is like saying, "I'm having a wheat bread sandwich for lunch". A true Michael sandwich would have a Michael in the middle and two people on the outside with some similar characteristic. But unless they were particularly unusual or interesting, they wouldn't warrant a mention. Thanks for bearing with me on that.

Now on to Gettysburg! Last Friday Kim and I took off on Friday evening and headed North through Maryland and into Pennsylvania, arriving at Gettysburg just after 9 pm. As we went to pull into our old farmhouse bed and breakfast, I turned (in the pitch black darkness mind you) into what I thought (because of the sign placement and lighting) was the driveway. Turns out it was the front yard. We had to just sit there and wait for cars to pass before I could back onto the roadway, drive 20 feet further down the road, and enter the actual driveway. Embarrassing.

Kim and I both shared a fear that Gettysburg would be an uninspiring expanse of fields and woods coupled with boring museum exhibits. In fact, Gettysburg turned out to be fantastic. We started at the new visitors center (very cool) and watched a movie narrated by Morgan Freeman about the battlefield. I decided that if a movie is ever made about my life, I want Morgan Freeman to narrate it. Or Alastair Moyer. Or Kim. After the movie we went upstairs to an exhibit called the "Cyclorama". You're forgiven for assuming that a "Cyclorama" is a bicycle exhibition. In fact, it's a huge 360 degree painting which depicts a crucial moment on the last day of the battle. It was done by a French painter and includes thousands of figures. You stand in the middle while a guide points out the most interesting parts of the pictures. Downstairs there's a big museum, which is interesting but overwhelming.

After the visitor center we headed over to lunch at a little restaurant (cheeseburger: $4.50) and then walked through the town center. We stopped at an antique shop where a man who saw our license plate asked us some questions about being from Washington. As we turned to leave he asked us a couple more. Then as we attempted to make our way to the door he continued asking us rephrased versions of questions we'd always answered. We eventually managed to squeeze out the door.

One place that surprised us was a store that billed itself as a "museum where everything's on sale". It was all real artifacts with price tags on them. We bought a bullet for $2 and sent it to my dad. We were going to buy the tree stump with a cannonball and bullets in it for $15,000 but it had already been sold.

That evening we started out on an audio tour of which we were both a little dubious. The idea is that you drive around the battlefield while listening to explanatory history on CD. It actually turned out to be amazing as we sat at each spot hearing what happened there. Once it got dark we headed over to a cool underground restaurant Kim had found for dinner.

The next day we finished up the audio tour and felt like we'd really gotten a good feel for the history of the area and what happened. Little Round Top was just like I'd imagined it. Devil's Den was an out of place outcropping of huge rocks that look like it was made to film a war movie. It's sobering to think of what actually happened there. The strangest part of the battlefield was standing on the Confederate positions and looking across the field they charged. And by 'charged' I mean 'walked slowly' while getting mowed down by cannons and bullets. Then to go across the field and see what the Union soldiers would have seen at the same moment. It had to be stunning for them that the Confederates would just line up and walk towards them like they did. Crazy. Also, the whole battlefield is littered with hundreds of monuments to different states and regiments and brigades. Some of them had flowers on them.

That night we watched the movie 'Gettysburg'. It's about 15 years old (and looks it), but it's quite moving as it tells the stories of different soldiers on each side of the battle. All together, we feel like we got a thorough understanding of the battle, the history behind it, and a picture of the different people involved. We highly recommend it.

Just a quick note if you do go: You'll probably expect places like 'Cemetery Ridge' and 'Seminary Ridge' to be located on land discernibly higher than the land around it. In South Eastern Pennsylvania, you'd be surprised as what qualifies as a topographical feature. Kim and I were routinely confused by discussions about the Union troops occupying the 'high ground' that was pointed out to us. Usually this amounted to a piece of land that would only be recognized as higher in elevation than that around it by an experienced surveying crew.

On the way back we stopped in Frederick, Maryland to patronize "the largest used book store in the Washington-Baltimore area". As Kim and I are both book people, we were visibly excited, having prepared our lists of what books we want. What we found was "the least organized book store in the Washington-Baltimore-Ottawa-Fairbanks-Kansas City-Los Angeles-Tokyo area". The store was divided into traditional book store sections. From there it's all downhill as books of the same subject (interpreted loosely) are crammed into shelves in no particular order. I asked about a particular book and was taken to a corner of the store and told the book 'would be in here if we have it'. The section was a horrifically shelved section of books, many of which belonged in another section. One upside was that all books in Russian were $.99. So there's that.

After the bookstore we went and saw Averill at Goucher College in Baltimore. We went and got lunch which made Averill's day as it was not the Goucher cafeteria. Then it was picking up a new chair at Ikea (an excellent reading chair that you can enjoy should you come visit us) and back home to get ready for the week.

Gosh, I always go way too long on this. Sorry everyone.

Our Bed and Breakfast

This is the Confederate position on Seminary Ridge. In the background on the right are Little Round Top and Big Round Top.

This is the field that the Confederates marched across during Pickett's Charge on the last day of the battle.

This is the view from Little Round Top. The rocks in the middle of the picture is called Devil's Den. On the left near the little shed is the area called the Slaughter Pen because of all the men who died there. The Union troops on this hill had clear shots at Confederate soldiers attacking up the hill.



Here we are standing on top of Devil's Den.



Gettysburg from a look out tower.


This picture was taken behind the center of the Union lines. Pickett's Charge got as far as the tree in the middle before being pushed back.

In the background you can see all the monuments to all the different regiments and brigades. These were everywhere on the battlefield. This exact spot marked the turning point of the war.

Not to Brag but...

The weather here has been ridiculously beautiful! Averill, one of the kids in the youth group, came to visit this weekend. He is going to college about 60 miles north of us. We went to the zoo on Sun with Jason and Jack. It was 73 degrees and so fun. Yesterday Jack and I ran around Roosevelt Island and today we played in a creek by his house forever in 60 degree weather. It has been so nice to have the sun out and having it feel like spring. Patrick had pipe night a couple of nights ago bc it was so nice outside. Not to worry, the weather is going to get cold again this weekend just in time for our trip to Gettysburg. We'll follow up about Gettysburg next week. Hope everyone is well.

Baraking the Weekend

I could spend hours detailing all the things that happened this weekend and what all we did but I'm not sure how many of you would appreciate that or read it as it would stretch for pages and the little bubble on the side of the screen indicating how far down the screen you've scrolled would be barely visible as it would be so small. But our friends who visited this weekend did a great job of chronicling the events blow by blow and other pictures- you can check that out here:http://losloya.blogspot.com/
Jake and Carlee are two great friends from Bellingham who are some of the best people you could ever want to meet. Unless you're uncomfortable being mocked a little. In that case, go find other friends. They arrived Friday night and it was cold. By cold I mean -3 wind chill or something like that. If anyone from Wisconsin or Maine is reading this, sorry to complain about 11 degrees when you're in the middle of -45 degrees, and also, can you send me some cheese or lobster? It's just uncomfortable to leave the house right now.
Here are the highlights of the past couple of days:
1. Inauguration opening concert on Sunday the 18th. We knew we'd have to arrive early as only 3 musicians and actors in the whole country had been left out of the lineup. We wanted to get a prime spot but honestly there were so many performs I thought they might be taking up the prime spots. And I didn't want to have to push James Taylor out of the way just to get a better view of the stage.
We arrived at 7:30 am for a 2:30 show. Plenty of time? Barely. We got a pretty good spot near the front and next to tree we were hoping we could climb on a little to get a better view. Things filled in pretty quickly and we thought all was progressing nicely until Jake and Carlee left to get food. They almost didn't get back. As more and more people started arriving they just kept pressing forward. And forward. No room? No problem, just keep shoving in! You had to keep your extremities close to your body because if not before you knew what was happening there'd be a whole family camped out in between you and your arm. After they had returned victoriously with the food I made the mistake of having to go to the bathroom. I have never really fought my way through a crowd like this before. (Keep in mind we're still 3 hours away from show time here). I was able to reach the bathrooms (about 75 yards away) in only 10 minutes or so, but when I came out, someone on stage started playing. It was only a mic test but no matter, let's all 400,000 (actual number) of us press forward towards the stage anyway and crush all in our path! It was sort of like watching a tunnel collapse- instead of making your way through a maze, now you have to swim through the rubble. It took over 45 minutes for us to travel those 75 yards and people were not happy about it. The whole story's long but I almost got in a fight with two guys who just REFUSED to let me by. At first they were annoyed and then it became a matter of principle for them that I would not get by. At one point I tried to push past one of the guys only for him to reach out and push be back while yelling "Aint gon happen!" Basically everyone around us got involved and was arguing about whether or not I should be able to get through. Kim and Jake could see me and were yelling and when I finally broke through (at much personal risk to my own safety) the whole crowd cheered. It felt like something out of a cheesy Disney movie.
Ok, that was really long and I left out the crazy guy climbing our tree, falling out of the tree, barely missing Jake, but not missing 3 other people, one of whom got really crushed. The concert itself was good as each performer did one piece or a couple of them played together. We were close enough to really see all of them which was cool. Obama spoke which was cool too. People went crazy every time they saw him on the screen and then when he came on stage. Finally the show was over and we headed into town to get dinner... That was a whole nother adventure which I'll spare you.
On Tuesday we got up at 3:00 am, were at the metro by 4:30, rode into town, got off at our stop by 5:15 because the metro was already backed up from all the cars on the track, and then... Just stopped. The metro station was full. Just full. Like when a pot is full, the extra water spills out, this was like that. People were slowly crushing toward the exit and swarming up the stopped escalators. But the crowd was happy. Everyone was waving flags and cheering. We finally got up the stairs, out onto the street, now let's run to the mall! Wait, the streets are also full... We finally make it the 3 blocks to the mall and the street was closed off. We were on 7th and they said we'd have to go down to 12th to get in. Good grief, could this get more complicated? Oh yes, it can. The street was closed to traffic but we still couldn't walk on it because every police car and horse carrier from the NE United States was parked on that street. And the cops kept yelling for us all to get on the sidewalks. Have they seen the sidewalks? Nowhere near enough room. Finally we made it onto the mall, and by 6:15 had staked out a good spot in view of the capital, in view of a jumbotron, near some speakers. We were the only ones with chairs and sleeping bags because we ignored the "No Backpacks" rule. Suckers. The crowd crush happened all over again and by 7:30 there was no hope of going anywhere. And it was really cold. The ceremony was pretty cool. It was short and to the point. Barak's speech was very good. On our way home we quickly found streets closed and the metro stations jammed to overflowing. And when I say overflowing I mean several city blocks surrounding the entrances just crammed with people. I'd never seen anything like it. We walked home.
Ok, I'll just finish up with some thoughts for you.
1. It was truly amazing to be a part of history like this. You could feel it and see it in the faces around you. The crowd was so excited and didn't seem to mind the cold or the crush. I (Patrick) don't know if I've ever really felt involved in something so specifically American like that before. At the same time I felt a little bit like an outsider. The people around me seemed to be universally hailing Barak as the savior of the world, he who shall undo all past wrongs and make all things right. Let us trust ourselves into his strong hands and may his wisdom pour over us blah blah blah. But I wasn't feeling it. I voted for him, and I think he's exceedingly capable and intelligent. But I wouldn't ask him to kiss my baby. I'm worried about some potential Obama policies. It was just kind of funny feeling, feeling a part of something and yet somehow an outsider.
2. I never want to be in a crazed mob. It felt dangerous to be in a crowd like that where everyone was singing and talking to each other. I can't imagine if everyone was fearing for their lives and running.
3. While I'm still hoping that Obama really will usher in a more bi-partisan ethos in government (don't we say that every four years?), it didn't start at the inauguration ceremony, at least not with the crowd. When Bush was shown on the jumbotron the crows booed like it was their job. When Cheney appeared they booed louder. That didn't offend me. They probably deserved it. But booing George H W Bush and Martha Bush? He was a legitimately good president who embodied many of the things his son didn't. It was just a little disappointing to witness the same old "boo all Republicans and cheer all Democrats". And it would have been exactly the same had McCain won. Oh well. To be fair, Colin Powell got a raucous cheer, but maybe just because he endorsed Obama, who knows.
4. Altogether, it was amazing to be there and I'm glad we endured the early mornings and cold and having to pee. It was even better to do it all with Jake and Carlee. I even think I did a good job of not letting on how insanely jealous I am of all the traveling they've done.
5. Thanks for getting to the bottom of this and in a spirit of renewed American excitement, let me just say that I'm praying for Obama and his family and looking forward to where the next couple of years take us.
Here we are seeing them put the finishing touches on the stage just days before the big day.

This is the line to the concert. Thankfully we were towards the front.


Camped out for the next 7 hours while thousands of people try to crush us.


These are all the crazy people like us waiting to see the concert and hopefully Obama.

There he is welcoming us all to his inauguration weekend.

Yay we survived. This is the little lady that Patrick helped get through the crowds to the bathroom and back, she was so little.

Carlee and I trying to keep warm at 5:30AM on Tuesday. Note that at this point we all looked homeless.

Cheering for something, Oprah, Obama, or maybe even Beyonce or maybe just the fact that the inauguration was finally starting.

Jason (Jack's dad), Patrick, Me, Carlee and Jake enjoying our new President, waiting to check our real lives to see if all our problems are solved yet. Not knowing that the first thing he did in office was force us to walk 6 miles home...sucky.



This is a poster that I (Kim) asked our friend Conner Peirson to make. The faith people are placing on Obama just seems like the type of faith and hope we should be placing in Jesus.

A sports prejudice revisited

As some of you may know, I (Patrick) am a sports fan. This fandom, however, does not extend to all sports. Football, in any of its many forms, is worthy of being showered with praise and honor. Basketball is an undeniably fun sport who's playoffs and finals can justifiably be watched on TV. Baseball's history combined with the mental aspect of the game make it a sport that, while boring at times, is great if your team's competing. I have nothing against soccer and played rugby in college.
That said, there are some sports that are not worth getting out of bed for (Note: I am talking here about watching these sports, not participating in them). I realize that by evening mentioning them on this little-read blog I am wasting your time and mine. These sports are, in no particular order: car racing of any kind, animal racing of any kind, bowling, women's collegiate sports (sorry ladies), rowing, body building, the WNBA, billiards, and many other "sports" that occasionally appear on TV. You are probably thinking that many of the activities I just listed don't even count as sports. You are correct. And I didn't even mention poker.
All that to say that I have firm opinions about every sport. Almost. Hockey has always been difficult for me to categorize. I enjoyed floor hockey in P.E. Activities where i furiously hit things and people repeatedly with sticks usually go over well with me. But the NHL has continually confused me. The sport is fast, very athletic and physical, and requires excellent team work. And yet somehow i was never interested and even bored by it. Here are my main beefs with hockey:
1. The fighting seems like a silly side show. Sports should be interesting and not need drama to punch up the story lines.
2. The goalie and his padding take up 7/8 of the net. I'm sorry, but when your job is best accomplished by laying down and hoping for the best you lose me.
3. There's no way to follow the puck (But read more on this later). The fact the hockey has a spinning red light to let people know their team has scored clues you in that the action is hard to follow.
4. It's not a sport you can just grab a couple friends and go play. Unless you live near a frozen lake. Which not even most polar bears do these days.
Last week a friend here invited Kim and I to an NHL game. The response "I'd rather eat the pencil I'm holding" was almost on my lips when he slipped in the twist: It was free. All of a sudden my curiosity was piqued. I had never been to an NHL game. I could put my long held prejudices to the test and surround myself with people actually interested in hockey. We immediately accepted the invitation while I prepared some of my best hockey-scorning facial expressions.
We arrived at the game (Washington Capitals v. Ottawa Senators) right as it started and found our seats, which, despite being as far from the ice as possible, gave a great view of everything. The only bad thing about our location was that we were out of range of the t-shirt cannon. Seeing the game in person, several things struck me immediately:
1. The puck is (mostly) visible. You can basically follow all the action. Slap shots are still invisible. If the red light goes off it means the shot went in the net. If another player mysteriously appears with the puck somewhere else then the shot must not have gone in the net.
2. I like sports fans no matter what they're rooting for (does not apply to car racing). A family behind us was coaching their 3 year old daughter to say things like 'Go Caps!' and 'The Caps are so good!' Cute.
3. The fouls in hockey are like penalties in football: they can be called at anytime for just about anything. The definition for hooking (which flashed on the jumbotron) is "using your stick to impede the movement of another player" The definition of holding is "holding an opponent from moving with your hands or stick". If both of these weren't happening all game then I must have been watching something else.
4. The intermissions are HORRIBLE. One 15 minute half time is bad enough to sit through in any sport but in hockey both intermissions are 17 minutes. I should have brought a Dostoevsky novel.
5. The most fun part to watch is skirmishes near the goal that usually involve the goal tender, totally unaware of the puck's location, flailing on the ground like a beached whale. Every time the goalie ended up on his back making ice angels I giggled to myself.
I have to admit, barring the endless intermissions, I had a good time at the game. The action was fast and skillful and the fans were fired up. I would still rather go to almost any other sporting event but at least next time I'll know to bring a long novel. And $140 if I want to buy a jersey.

A Day in the Life of Kim and Jack

Today Jack and I made Christmas cookies. It was super fun. I showed up with most of the stuff to make them, shape them, and frost them. When I told Jack that we were making cookies he was stoked. Then I started to pull all the ingredient out while telling him what they were for and how we would use them to make the cookies. Once I pulled everything out he said, "Kim, where are the cookies, I want to eat them." Cute. Later we put all the stuff together and had our dough and again he asked where the cookies were. We cut out Rudolphs, Mittens, Presents, Snowmen that Jack called Johnny the Snowman, and Stockings, baked them and made frosting, lots of frosting of different colors. While they were baking Jack sat in front of the oven and watched them bake making funny faces in the window and saying things like, "oooo", "Kim, can I eat them now?", when I said, no they are too hot right now in the oven he said, "I think they're cold now." Then, you guessed it we frosted the cookies. Jack was making his cookies for the "art show", not sure what that meant but it was cute. All this fun with some good Christmas music in the background. Once we were done we ate cookies and watched Rudolph. Then went back for round two of frosting. It was a fun day.

"I'm ready Kim!"


"Wow, we're making a mess."


"ooooo, I think they're cold now."






"That Good!"

The Cernas in Town

My family plus Meghan (David's girlfriend) came for Thanksgiving. It was so great having them here. I think DC wore them out though, they went to all the major museums, to the top of the Washington Monument, saw the glory of the National Cathedral and still had time to shop and just hang out. I loved having everyone in our little house, surprisingly it fit us all well. Meghan and David did take turns on the couch and the floor-sorry guys, but they didn't complain at all. Meghan and I made dinner for the family and Jack and his parents. My family enjoyed meeting them. It was an all around good week and I really miss having Dad asking me 101 questions about everything I do : ), Meghan and David constantly teasing and laughing with each other and Mom's funny one liners and expressions. It's really quiet here now and I can't wait to see them again for Christmas.



Our table...we had more food than this. Seeing as how we barely had room for our immediate family we decided that we are a long way from being able to host a real Thanksgiving.

Patrick being such the man of the house by carving the turkey he made.

The only thing Meghan bought while she was here, a finger puppet from the Native American Museum.


Mom and Dad walking The Mall.


One of David's cool pictures from the Washington Monument.


Meghan making her Inaugural Address.


Mom and Meghan riding the carousel in at the National Mall (they were the only ones on the "ride").




Here we are totally bored with the DC scene.
(That is Barak's Inauguration stage being build in front of the Capitol.)